


The Hero of The Story

by philaetos



Series: Carry On Countdown 2020 [9]
Category: Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Carry On Countdown (Simon Snow), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27981276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philaetos/pseuds/philaetos
Summary: “You’re going to die if the bleeding doesn’t stop,” I say again, more firmly.He glances at me, and what I see in his eyes terrifies me.Indifference. As if the thought of his death doesn’t faze him at all. As if…As if he doesn’t care if he dies.—————————When Simon comes back from a mission, bleeding out, Baz takes care of him and realizes that the most worrying thing about him isn’t the blood he lost.Written for the Carry On CountdownDay 15 - Hurt/Comfort
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Series: Carry On Countdown 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2030371
Comments: 9
Kudos: 80
Collections: Carry On Countdown 2020





	The Hero of The Story

**Baz**

Snow isn’t back.

The Mage called him this morning for one of those stupid missions, and he still isn’t back. I’ve been sitting on my bed, staring at the door for the past two hours, but it never moved. Never opened. 

There’s no trace of Snow here and it’s killing me.

It always kills me when he goes on one of his bloody missions. He risks his life constantly just because the Mage tells him so. But the Mage isn’t the one on the frontline, fighting dangerous creatures. 

I bring the flask to my lips and drink another mouthful, relishing the burn in my throat.

You’d think that being a vampire and all that, I’d have a good level of tolerance to alcohol. I don’t. I haven’t even drank half of the flask yet and I already feel lightheaded. Relaxed. The artificial kind of relaxed. The kind of relaxed you only experience because the alcohol makes you, because you forget the reasons why you’re not relaxed in the first place.

The problem is that I can’t forget the reason. Not this time. Never when Snow is. When I’m drinking because of him, I either drink so much I make myself sick in order to be able to stop thinking, or I only drink enough to feel warm and dizzy, but his blue eyes still haunt me. 

And they’re about to haunt me in real life, not just in my mind, I think as I hear the door handle.

He tried to grab it and missed it. Oaf. 

The second time he doesn’t miss it, and the moment the door open, I smell it.

Blood.

**…**

**Simon**

Fuck, Baz is here.

Of course he’s here, it’s his room.

But he’s in the Catacombs at night usually.

But it’s still his bloody room. 

I see his pupils go wide as I walk in. He keeps his mouth tight shut instead of making a comment, so I suppose his fangs have popped out because of the blood I have on me. I don’t care. 

I don’t care that his fangs are probably out.

I don’t care that my bleeding is an inconvenience to him.

I don’t care if I fucking bleed out and die, and I don’t care if Baz fucking drain me either, while we’re at it. 

That would save me a lot of fucking trouble. 

That’s why I didn’t go to the infirmary to get my wounds healed. 

I just _don’t care._

**…**

**Baz**

He’s bleeding out. I can see the dark stains on him. The biggest one is on his stomach, it’s larger than the hand he is pressing on it. And he doesn’t seem worried. He’s just walking towards his bed as if he doesn’t have an open wound covering him in blood on his stomach.

A fool, he’s a fool. 

“Snow,” I groan, trying to sound irritated and not worried sick. “Why the fuck are you here and not in the infirmary?”

“Don’t need to,” is the only answers he gives me as he collapses on his bed, on his back, kicking his shoes off once he’s lying down. 

“Snow, you’re quite literally bleeding out. You need to get your wounds healed, and quickly.”

He glares at me, and then he’s turning on his side, away from me. It probably applies more pressure to his wound, which can’t be comfortable.

“Goodnight, Baz,” he says as he pulls the covers over his entire body, even his head.

If he thinks I’m going to leave him alone just because he hides himself, he’s very fucking wrong. 

“You’re going to die if the bleeding doesn’t stop, you moron,” I mutter with more anger than I probably should as I push myself up. 

He doesn’t answer.

I feel irritation rising inside me, to accompany the fear. 

I head to his bed, breathing through my mouth and trying not to focus on the delicious smell of his blood. Like popcorn and melted butter. 

I grab the covers and snatch them off his grasp, pushing them on the floor.

A pool of blood has started to take shape on his mattress, and he’s doing nothing to stop it. 

What the fuck is wrong with him?

“Leave me alone,” he says, awkward kicking backwards with his elbow, probably trying to dig it in my stomach. 

“You’re going to die if the bleeding doesn’t stop,” I say again, more firmly.

He glances at me, and what I see in his eyes terrifies me. 

Indifference. As if the thought of his death doesn’t faze him at all. As if…

As if he doesn’t care if he dies. 

My heart breaks. 

“You’re not dying on my watch,” I say as I return to my side of the room, looking for my wand. 

I need to heal him. If he won’t go to the infirmary, I will close his wounds myself. Bloody hell, I’d even close them with a needle and bloody surgical thread if this is the kind of injury that can’t be cured with magic.

“Then go. Go to the Catacombs, do your things, and pretend you spent the whole evening there if someone asks you. They can’t say it’s your fault I died if you weren’t there.”

His words make my blood boil, and the nonchalant way he says them even more. 

The second after I put my hand on my wand, I’m back at his side, pushing his shoulder to make him lay on his stomach. He winces, it probably hurt. See if I care. He’s being an idiot, he doesn’t deserve sympathy. 

I point my wand towards his stomach and cast a few healing spells before he can stop me. It’ll take a few minutes to fully close his wound, but it’s still the most efficient way to heal big injuries. Nothing compares to magic, especially in urgent situations.

Then I look back at him.

**…**

**Simon**

His eyes look like a storm. Furious and passionate. 

And grey, of course.

“Do you really think I’m only helping you because I don’t want to be accused of killing you?” he says, his voice as cold as ever, but trembling slightly too. 

“Why else would you help me?”

Baz hates me. He has no reasons to help me. He’d finally be rid of me, and he’d even have the room all to himself if I was gone. It could actually benefit him _not_ to ‘help’ me. 

“Because… Because I can’t let you do something as idiotic as _dying!_ ”

“Why? So you can kill me yourself later? With an audience, maybe? Oh yes, I’m sure that when you’ll finish me off you’ll do it publicly. Where everyone could see you ending the Chosen One. Make a show out of it.”

Something flashes in his eyes, something that looks a bit like… hurt? But it’s gone before I can really tell, and it’s not like anything _can_ hurt Baz. Not anything I say, at least. 

I thought he was going to start screaming at me again, but instead he sits on the edge of the bed, making sure not to touch me so that his body wouldn’t brush any of the little cuts I have here and there, I suppose. 

“You and I both know that we don’t truly want to kill each other,” he says with a voice that could almost be qualified as soft if he wasn’t Baz Pitch.

There’s nothing soft about Baz. He’s all sharp tongue and angular features. 

“Do we?”

I know I don’t. I’ve never wanted to kill Baz. It just always appeared to be something that was meant to happen. I’m the Mage’s Heir, and he’s the last heir of the greatest of the Old Families. It’s like our rivalry was written in the stars.

“Use your brain for once. Do you think you’d still be here if I really intended to kill you? You’re loud and annoying and a complete moron and you piss me off half of the time, but that doesn’t mean I want you dead.”

**…**

**Baz**

He looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. 

“I’m not sure I believe that.”

I guess that’s fair. It hurts a bit, but it makes sense he’d think that. I wish he trusted me enough not to think that. I wish he _loved_ me enough not to think that.

But there isn’t a universe where Simon Snow could love me.

“Believe what you want, it’s not my problem,” I say shortly as I stand up again. I’ve cast the spell on him. He’ll stop bleeding. My job here is done.

If I stay too close for too long, I’ll make a mistake. Especially when his blood is still there, red against the mattress, tempting me. 

I start walking away, but before I can reach my bed, I hear his voice. The words he says are like a million tiny needles stabbing me in the heart all at once.

“I wish you hadn’t healed me.”

I stop in my tracks.

**…**

**Simon**

I don’t know why I said it.

No, actually I do know.

I need to talk to someone.

It’s too hard having all those thoughts poisoning my brain and not being able to tell anyone.

Penny would be too worried.

I’m not close enough to Agatha to be comfortable confiding in her.

The Mage would only care because he’d lost his precious little soldier if I killed myself.

Baz isn’t a much better choice. He doesn’t care about me either. But he’s here, and at least he won’t _pity_ me.

I’m not sure Baz Pitch is capable of pitying anyone.

“What?” he says as he turns around, so fast that it makes his hair move. It’s a bit comical.

“I wish you had let me bleed out.”

He’s back by my side almost immediately. He even sits on my bed again. I don’t know why he thinks it’s okay to just sit on my bed like that but I don’t have it in me to push him away. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, and he sounds genuinely concerned. His eyes are full of concern too. No more storm, now they look like they usually do. Like the moon. Unreachable and beautiful. 

It’s laughable, really. Baz Pitch, the boy who’s made my life a living hell for years, asking if I’m okay and actually caring about it. 

“No.”

Because there’s no point in lying, right? I pretty much told him I wish he’d let me die, he _knows_ I’m not okay.

“Would you like to talk about it?” 

Talking isn’t usually something I do. Especially not with Baz. But I feel like my head is going to explode or I’m going to jump off the goddamn window soon if I stay like that. I’ve been keeping it all to myself for months but now I think I’ve reached my breaking point. 

“Yes.”

He looks at me, and his eyes are a little less cold than they always are. “Go on, then. I’m listening.”

“Why would you even _want_ to listen, though?”

**…**

**Baz**

Because I’m hopelessly in love with you and nothing hurts me more than hearing you say those horrible things. Because the thought of you dying turns my stomach. Because if I could, all I’d do all day would be listening to you talk. About your problems. About your life. About your classes. About the bloody weather if you want, as long as you’re talking to me.

I sigh. “You know, as much as you believe I’m made of stone, I’m not. We’ve been living together for _7 years_ , Snow. 7. That’s a little bit less than half of our lives. I… You’re part of my life, whether I like it or not. Whether _you_ like it or not. So when you say things like that, of course I worry. And of course I want to listen. I… I care more than you think.”

Maybe I’ve said too much.

Maybe I haven’t said enough.

I don’t know. 

All I know is that Snow has a dumbstruck look on his face, like I just told him the craziest thing he’s ever heard

“Whatever,” I continue. “The point is, if you want to talk, I’m here and I’ll listen. If you want we can go to sleep afterwards and pretend nothing ever happened.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he says almost immediately.

Of course he’d want to pretend the one time I was humane with him didn't happen. 

“Of course it’s a good idea. It’s my idea.”

And then I shut up, hopefully making him understand that he can start talking, whenever he wants to.

I don’t give a fuck if it takes him all night to tell me what he wants, as long as it takes off some of the weight on his shoulders.

It can’t be easy, being the Chosen One.

He isn’t saying anything yet, so I look away from him. Maybe having my eyes directly on his face is making him uncomfortable. That brings my attention back to the blood. It’s been filling my nose so much since he arrived, I didn’t even notice it anymore.

It has started to dry a little bit now. Maybe I should have cast a cleaning spell. It’s too late for that now. 

Eventually, after long, extremely long minutes of silence, he opens his mouth.

“I just… I want it to be over.”

I try not to show how much the words affect me when I ask “What do you want to be over?”

“ _Everything,_ ” he answers with such distress in his voice that all I want is to lie down next to him and hold him close. Stroke his hair and whisper calming words in his ear. Kiss his temple and tell him he’ll be okay. That I’m here and that I won’t let anything or anyone hurt him ever again. 

But I can’t do any of this. Because he’s Simon Snow and I’m Baz Pitch and that’s not something that can happen between us. 

“It’s… it’s complicated, it’s just… Ever since the Mage first told me about, you know, the fact that I’m the Chosen One, I’ve thought that I wouldn’t live long, and I… my future never worried me because I never had to think about it, but now I’m almost out of Watford and I… it’s like my life is falling apart. I feel like… like I’ve got no future. I’m not good at anything and nothing really passionates me so going to uni doesn’t seem like the thing for me but I don’t have any qualifications to work and I thought for a long time that I’d just join the Mage’s Men because following the Mage’s orders is something I’m bloody good at but the thing is I don’t _want_ to be his puppet my whole life but there’s nothing else I know how to do, and then there’s also the fact that I don’t even have Agatha anymore and Penny will move to America to live with her boyfriend soon enough and I’ll be alone and I’m _terrified_ of being alone because I’ve been my whole childhood and it was awful and I just… I just… I just don’t see the point of carrying on, you know? When I think about the future, all I can see is more struggle, more pain, more loneliness, and I’m not sure I can fucking take more.”

He’s started crying by now. I’m not looking at his face, but I can tell. His voice is quivering and wet with tears. It’s fucking breaking my heart.

I had no idea Snow was suffering like that. He always looks so cheerful and full of life… I suppose it’s just for appearances. A mask that he puts on not to worry Bunce, not to worry anyone.

Because he’s the Chosen One and he has to be the perfect, golden hero.

The hero of the story can’t have it rough.

The hero of the story can’t be sad.

The hero of the story can’t break down.

The hero of the story can’t…

The hero of the story can’t _want it to be over._

But he’s not just that.

He’s not just the hero.

He’s a boy. Just a boy. A boy who’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. A boy who has been constantly sacrificing himself for years without even a thank you from anyone. A boy who’s in such pain and so lost that he’s resorted to talking about it with his evil bully of a roommate. 

“And I… things have been… difficult for a few weeks now. Maybe months, really. This… tonight isn’t the first time that I think that maybe… it wouldn’t be so bad if I… if I…” 

His breathing is laboured. Maybe too laboured. 

“It’s okay, I understand what you mean.”

I do and it’s destroying me.

Simon Snow, my beautiful nightmare, has been thinking about… death. 

I didn’t think someone like Snow could be suicidal. I guess I was like everyone else, in the end. I only saw the hero. I couldn’t see what he was hiding under his bright smiles and shiny blue eyes. 

“I just want to stop hurting,” he finished, and I can hear his voice break. 

I see him move his hands, probably to hide his face behind them. I can’t be sure, I’m still not looking at his face. I’m still Baz. I don’t want to make him feel even more embarrassed by looking at him while he’s crying.

In a rush of courage caused by how intense my urge to be here for him, to comfort him, has gotten from hearing how broken be sounds, I reach out and put my hand on his arm. He startles at the contact, but doesn’t make a move to push me away, so I leave my hand there, stroking his warm skin.

“I’m not sure anything I could tell you could really help you, but… it may sound desperate now. Your situation, I mean. But it won’t always be. I can see why the end of the school year being closer and closer would stress you out, but I’m sure you’ll manage. You always do. You’ll find yourself a nice little flat with Bunce, you’ll get a job, or find something at uni you want to study, and life will go on. It might be hard, no one ever said it’s easy, but you’ll manage.”

His voice is weak and muffled when he says “But I’ll still end up alone. Penny said she won’t stay more than a year or two in the UK. And Agatha already has a suitcase ready to fly to America. I… I know it’s selfish, but Agatha… she was supposed to be the one for me. We should have married and have children and have our happily ever after, but instead we broke up and she’s thriving ever since which makes me feel even more shitty because if she’s so bloody happy now that she isn’t burdened by this relationship with me anymore, then I must really be a terrible boyfriend so I won’t ever have anyone, at least not anyone that’ll stay, and I’ll be alone my whole fucking life because I don’t know how to love someone the right way.”

I’m right here.

You could have me.

You wouldn’t have to be alone.

You could treat me as badly as you want, I’d still be here.

_You can have me._

“Snow… Have you considered that maybe Wellbelove isn’t happier now because you were a terrible boyfriend but simply because she feels better on her own? That maybe independence is what she needs, and that even if you were the most perfect boyfriend in the world, she would have preferred freedom to you? Not everyone has the same needs, and it’s possible that a relationship wasn’t one of her needs, in the end. It may have nothing to do with you. I’m sure that someone else could be happy with you. You are so easy to love, Simon. I have no doubt someone will love you. You won’t end up alone. Maybe you just have been too focused on Wellbelove to look for love elsewhere. You didn’t see just how cared for you were.”

Snow so obviously needs love, I can’t help but show him some of mine. 

School is ending in a matter of weeks anyway, the humiliation of his rejection or disgust if he understands what I’m saying won’t last too long. 

**…**

**Simon**

He’s never called me Simon

But he did, just now.

It makes my heart do a weird thing in my chest, for some reason. 

**…**

**Baz**

He uncovers his face, letting his hands slide down his cheeks to wipe the tears there before letting them fall on his chest, one on top of the other. 

“You really think so? That someone could love me?”

I could.

I _do._

I love you.

So fucking much it hurts.

“I’m sure of it,” I say with a small smile.

This is the most vulnerable I’ve ever been in front of him. It’s terrifying. But this is also the most vulnerable he’s ever been in front of me, so I suppose it puts us on equal footing.

**…**

**Simon**

I’m probably imagining things because I’m so damn desperate for some affection that I’d take it from anyone, but… Is Baz talking about himself? 

I know he’s gay -it was a huge scandal last year when people found out- and I also know that it’s not because he’s gay that he’s attracted to every bloke he sees, I’m not that stupid, but he’s being so soft, telling me all those nice things, rubbing my arm, smiling to me. 

Is it possible that he… that he might…

“Baz, can I ask you a question.”

“Sure.”

“Do you… do you fancy me?”

It’s out of my mouth before I can think about it any longer. I close my eyes because I don’t want to see his reaction. I don’t want to see his cruel smirk if I completely misunderstood what he was saying. 

The answer takes a few seconds to come, but when it does, it’s like my whole world is turning upside down.

“Yes. Yes, I fancy you.”

**…**

**Baz**

Fancy. That’s such a stupid word. 

I don’t _fancy_ him.

I love him. With every single fiber of my body. With every breath I take, I love him a bit more. 

He’s everything to me. 

When he opens his eyes again, the look he gives me makes me more dizzy than all the alcohol I drank before he arrived.


End file.
